Question for Numbers-/Balance- Nerds (like me) regarding my own Map Generator-Balancer
PICTURES IN THE POST
Hey TI people. I am quite obsessed with the game. Playing mostly real life games.
I wanted to create a "one click" map generator that spits out fun, interactive but kind of balanced maps.
Maybe I can release it as some point (if I understood how that works).
I want to get an unbiased opinion from you guys. More infos regarding evaluation at the end of the post!
I would LOVE to hear some thoughts on this map created by my generator.
I generated a 4 Player Hyperlane (2 warp zones) Map for POK+TE.
There exists a evaluation difference to my other faved online map generators, i post their maps of the same string here too.
Keep in mind this map is just an example to think about evaluation and balancing aspects and to compare my generator with two existing generators.
The string is:
0 23 114 0 64 19 74 0 32 34 97 0 37 0 115 100 80 0 0 0 31 0 39 68 0 79 0 0 0 25 0 21 26 0 110 0
(hyperlanes = 0's)
https://joepinion.github.io/ti4-map-lab/
https://tidraft.com/map-generator
Hopefully all my evaluation methods, more hopefully written in an understandable way:
- My base value is determined by the "optimal spent" value of a planet (3/1 = 3, 0/2 = 2). No different treatment for res/inf.
But found it weird having a 4/0 planet count as much as a 4/3 planet. I came up with adding half of the "secondary value" to the score: 4/0 = 4, 4/3 = 5.5 and so on.
- Equidistant tiles of a slice count x0.5 for the slices score.
- The distance of a tile to the slices homesystem applys a multiplier to the system:
distance(1)=1,(2)=0.8,(3)=0.5 (same a the equidistant).
- a direct path to MR is a good thing. If the path in your own slice is blocked by an anomaly, your position gets a flat malus on the score, depending on the anomaly. A supernova is the worst, gravity rift the second worst. Nebula and Asteroid Field give the smallest malus.
My plan with this: "If there is a super nova on your way to MR blocking your access to the map center, at least your other tiles will be better."
- I have built in an option to choose the value of the Equidistant Tiles. For example you can choose "10%" so the map builder will use the best 10% tiles to first fill in these positions before starting to use all tiles for the other positions. I really like that option because having strong equidistants always ensures conflict/deals and cool Ti-actions.
This is kind of the reason I wanted to make a map generator.
- I don't want to "overbalance" things but in all my real games it had a big impact to have 3 or even 4 planets of the same trait. 3 same trait planets give you 0.5+ rating, a set of 4 give you 1+. Planets on your equidistant positions count as a half-planet.
- entropic scars, tech skips, trade stations and legendary planets have flat boni to their rating. like +0.5 for a tech skip, +2 for an entropic scar (won't get multiple boni from scars).
The ratio of blue and red systems should be as stated in the game rules. In my generator I am able to select the exact number of red/blues.
I love this game so much and hope that anyone wants to give their opinion on this stuff :)